


Drabbles in Marvel

by fynndin



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Getting to Know Each Other, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Love Triangle, Misunderstandings, Multi, Polyamory, Pre-Slash, Social Media, Tony Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Needs Sleep, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Waiter Steve, YouTube
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 10:33:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4663383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fynndin/pseuds/fynndin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small collection of drabbles. I didn't plan and re-read them as thoroughly as my other stuff. Nothing here was beta'd and so far this collection contains mainly of writing exercises and a few prompt fills. The tags are not in any specific order. I put them together as I remembered them. There is nothing in here that I'd consider trigger worthy, so feel free to ignore them. It's really just fluff all the way. I guess if I should ever start writing angst drabbles, I'll just start a new collection for them.</p><p>At the beginning of each chapter I'll state the pairing and the relevant tags. Have fun!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. At Your Service

**Author's Note:**

> Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
> 
> Waiter!Steve, Pre-Slash (probably)
> 
> Steve goes to one of his first Charity Galas in the new age. It ends up... not as intended.

There certainly had changed a few things since the old days. Steve looked around at the Gala and still couldn’t quite grasp, how everything had gotten so big and bright and flashy. Sure they had clean white interiors back then and for a special occasion they had gotten the halls all lit up with flower decorations along the wall and expensive drinks in crystal glasses had been served and all that stuff, but the 21st century put all of this into a new perspective. Especially the part of the 21st century that Tony Stark paid for.

There were two enormous ice sculptures dominating the scene, one of an angel, the other one of a dinosaur. Steve had asked for the meaning and apparently they had been sculpted after miniatures that a particularly gifted child of the children’s valleys they were collecting for, had made. How the limited climate field worked that kept them from melting was beyond Steve. The walls were illuminated. Not only lit, the light sources were lowered into the floor, so the white walls seemed to be what lit the room, reflecting warm, beige tinged light over their full height. Fern plants the size of small trees lined the walls. The ideas that people had when they had absolutely no shortage of resources were breathtaking.

It was not the first important publicity thing Steve was visiting, but he was still far from used to it and let his gaze wander, occasionally chiming in to the conversation next to him, that was right now mainly lead by Tony anyway. He nodded along and smiled at the patrons, occasionally added to an anecdote and looked around some more.

When he realized that his drink was empty, he excused himself and went off to the bar. It was quite busy there right now. The staff was buzzing around and while keeping their professional, cool look, Steve couldn’t help but recognize the stress they tried to hide. He decided to avoid adding to it, looked across the bar and when a bottle of champaign was absentmindedly placed on the counter by a waitress who needed both hands, to pass over glasses, he simply refilled his glass himself. When the waitress spotted him, she looked a bit worried, but Steve gave her a flashing smile and a quick wink. Now she looked a bit confused and a faint pink flushed her cheeks, but in the end, she smiled back. Steve left it at that and returned to Tony’s endless conversation and their duty to entertain potential donors.

In general Steve got along just fine with these events and he was pretty good at entertaining the crowd, but right now the topics of conversation were not exactly his points of interest and Tony was handling that one just fine, so when Tony’s glass was empty, he offered to head over to the bar again to get him a refill. Despite being in the middle of explaining SI’s plans of expanding the large scale use of Arc Reactor technology, he turned briefly towards Steve, interrupted his seemingly endless stream of words and quirked an eyebrow at Steve.

Steve couldn’t get rid of the feeling that he had said or done something strange, but then one of the people Tony had been talking to - CEO of some entertainment company if Steve remembered correctly - turned his way and said: “Oh, that’s great. Would you bring me a glass of red wine?”

“Certainly, Ma'am”, he answered with a bright smile.

Whatever had gotten Tony so confused seemed to have passed. He said: “Yeah, sure. You could get me another Whiskey. Just say it’s for me, they’ll know which one.” When Steve grabbed his empty glass, Tony gave him another weird look, but quickly returned back to the conversation. Steve went for the bar without paying it a second thought.

After waiting for a relatively short time, Steve saw himself confronted with the task of handling three glasses. He took the tumbler into his right hand, the champagne glass into his left hand and tried to balance the absurdly large red wine glass between the two. It promptly earned him two half spilled drinks and several wine stains on his suit jacket as well as an amused smile from the waitress behind the bar. At least he had managed to not drop a glass. He returned to the bar (he had made it an entirety of two steps) and was greeted with two new drinks.

“Thanks”, he said. He weighed up just taking off his jacket and going without, which was probably against all kinds of formal dressing codes, against leaving it on with the stains and all, when he spotted that at one point the wine had soaked through to his shirt. Just his luck.

~~~~~

Tony was getting a bit worried. First of all, the Governor he was talking to wanted to talk Avengers tactics. He could provide most of requested information, but basically all he did was extracting ideas and strategies from his memories. He had never actually looked into any strategic guidelines, books or ideas of SHIELD and wasn’t the tacticial mind. That was Steve, who was also the second of his worries. He had gone for the bar to get drinks. Weird enough, considering that they really just had to wait long enough to grab a passing waiter for that. And by now he had been gone definitely more than long enough to get drinks.

He kept the conversation running, but when he saw one of the staff members steer towards them, he decided to ask. “Excuse me, Governor, I’ll be back with you in a second”, he interrupted and turned towards the waiter. “Hey, since you’re coming from the bar, have you seen a…” He looked at the guy again and blinked. “I can’t even let you go to the bar on your own, can I?”

That was unmistakably and without any doubt Steve. Balancing a tray, wearing one of the staff’s vests and with his sleeves rolled up, but still the one and only Capsicle with his suit jacket slung over his arm just so that for a moment Tony had mistaken it for a dish cloth. And now he was also turning bright pink.

“I need a new suit jacket. Preferably before yet another person calls me over to order something”, Steve stated dryly.

Tony gave him a once over. “I’d say something about how you can even wear this, but…” He inhaled sharply. “That would be an understatement. You sure, you want to change into another jacket?”, he asked with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.

“Yes Tony. Yes, I am sure”, Steve retorted and passed over the drinks while staring Tony dead in the eye.

“Ok, ok”, Tony said and held his hands up placatingly. “I’ll call Happy. And I’ll just let you know, that if you should ever aim to seduce anyone, presenting yourself as a waiter like that might get you there.” Steve seemed to be very determined to pierce Tony with his stare. “Just saying”, Tony mumbled, barely concealing his grin. “I’ll get Happy here with clean clothes.”

~~~~~

Steve went to wait outside by the entrance and a remarkably short time (and probably a few ignored traffic laws) later, Happy drove up and handed him an entire, different suit, including shirt and tie. When Steve had changed into them he went back out and handed Happy the dirty suit. “Um, Mr Hogan, I don’t know, if you know this any better than me, but this vest…”, Steve stammered.

“I can just hand it back to the staff, Captain Rogers. No problem.” Happy took the vest, reassuring Steve with a smile that everything was cared for.

“That’s also a good point, but what I really wanted to ask is: Do you happen to know, where I could buy one like that?”


	2. Springtime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha Romanov/Peggy Carter
> 
> Misunderstandings, Getting to know, Implied Character Death (Steve Rogers)
> 
> (Loosely) based on this prompt: http://danger-days-of-our-lives.tumblr.com/post/126146422089/likehemmins-imagine-that-youve-been-stood-up
> 
> AU: Natasha lives in the forties.
> 
> That date Steve promised Peggy would probably never take place. The day came though and Peggy would be damned if she missed it on the simple assumption that Steve wouldn't show up.

Peggy looked at the napkin in her hand. She had crumpled and unfolded it for what must have been a hundred times now. She wasn’t even sure why she was doing this to herself. Of course he wouldn’t show up. He had put that plane into the ice and himself with it. But he had promised it and Steve never gave up on what he promised. She was a grown woman and should be able to face the hard reality, but somewhere down there was that little girl that didn’t want to.

When the napkin was once again neatly flattened on the table, the waitress approached her table. “Is there anything I can get you, yet?”, she asked, but the undertone told that she really wanted to ask something else. After all, Peggy had been stalling for at least half an hour already. The couple at the next table was shooting her sympathetic glances.

“I’m, um, sorry, I’m waiting for someone. But I’m sure that…” She trailed off. She couldn’t say it out loud. So far she had clung to avoidance, but saying it out loud would be an open lie. “Can I just have a glass of water for now, please? I won’t wait much longer. I promise.”

The waitress sighed, clearly torn between offering consolation and asking her to leave. It was Friday night and it wouldn’t take long to find someone who wanted the table and would in fact order something, but for now she just nodded, whispered: “Ok”, and walked back to the counter.

Peggy resisted an urge to chew at her lip. The minute she let grief ruin her make up in public would be the minute she’d give up and go home. When she saw yet another man throwing her a pitying look, she went back to maltreating the napkin. Not ruining her make up included not crying, which took a lot of focus right now. She wasn’t even sure when to stop this.

The door opened and Peggy looked up. Of course, it wasn’t… well, it was not whom she was waiting for. Not a bad sight, though , with that stunning figure, clad in black slacks and a matching blazer. Bright red locks, cut short so that they bobbed up and down with every step, framed a sharply cut face with astonishingly full lips. The satisfying clacking sound of pumps ensured that everyone looked at the new guest, who made a beeline for Peggy’s table.

Peggy needed a moment to realize what was going on and was just about to open her mouth and declare that this was the sign she had been waiting for and she’d gladly leave the table to the woman, when said woman simply put her purse onto the table, started pulling out the chair and said loud and clear: “I’m so sorry I’m late sweetheart. The traffic is a nightmare right now.” She looked at her watch. “Oh damn these… I wanted to be here an hour ago. Sorry, really. I’m so happy you’re still here.” The last sentence had been a bit more private. When she had sat down and saw that Peggy was obviously still too confused to react, she took the hand that had been holding the crumpled napkin and all but whispered: “My name is Nancy. Please just play along. I don’t know who ditched you, they obviously need a lecture in taste, but I need a cover and I could probably provide you with some distraction for this evening in return.” She winked and if that wasn’t one of the most convincing arguments Peggy had seen in a while, she didn’t know.

She sighed and smiled at Nancy. Which probably wasn’t her real name, if she needed a cover, but that whole thing promised to get Peggy through the evening without drowning in self pity and grief. She rolled her eyes and settled for a criticizing half smile. “It’s ok, Nan. But really, you should know New York traffic on Friday nights. I was worried about you. Not to mention that the waitress was slowly losing her patience on me.”

They ordered dinner and went for easy talk first. Nancy talked about her day and Peggy actually had fun with that. She tried to memorize as many details as possible, because while it was probably all fake, they might be of use if the stranger really needed her to back up a cover. In exchange she talked about her job at the phone company and how she had the most annoying customer just yesterday. Possible similarities with SSR co-workers were entirely coincidental.

It didn’t need any communication to agree, that they were on their first date, so getting to know each other was in order. “About the New York traffic: I’m from Macedonia and have been here for hardly two months”, Nancy said with her notable Polish accent, that was probably just as fake as the information.

“Oh, are you…”, Peggy started and paused long enough for the redhead to nod, gulp and stare at the floor for a moment.

“Yeah, Jewish”, she said eventually. “My family got away, but we were separated.”

Peggy could absolutely do awkward silence. After an appropriate amount of time she jumped in again: “So, about last week: I’m still sorry about that drink. I just stormed off afterwards. Didn’t even apologize.” She laughed nervously. There was nothing better for a pretend date than a few loose ends to see what she’d make of it.

“Well, good that I came here today to get that apology”, Nancy said. With a daring smile she stabbed one of the potatoes on her plate and manoeuvred it into her mouth with an almost obscene gesture. “Still have to thank that guy, Gabriel was it, right? Who delivered your message to me. And no worries about the drink. If you had spilled it on my blouse, that would be a whole different topic, but that old, worn out skirt? Huh.”

From then it just went on. They played that weird game, making the other come up with explanations for the hints they gave, yarning entire stories from mere sub-clauses of the other. Played for a long time and would have even longer, but for some reason the waitress seemed to have changed her mind on Peggy. Now that Nancy was there, it seemed like Peggy was less welcome than before. Well, probably two bantering, flirting women were less welcome than one who was moping about her - assumed to be male - missing date. On many other days Peggy would have seen it as a challenge, but today she wasn’t really up to it.

She paid and they strolled down the street, talking on and on. Peggy caught herself, interspersing more and more grains of truth into what she said aside from the plain false cover stories she went on making up. It was fun until she was hit again by how that evening had started.

“That was a great evening, Nancy”, she started and cast her eyes down. “It really made me forget for a few hours.”

Nancy gave her an understanding smile. “Whoever let you down there certainly must have been something to you.”

“You have no idea”, Peggy mumbled, looking up again. She realized just now how intensely green Nancy’s eyes sparkled. Green like hope and new beginnings.

“Guess I don’t”, the woman agreed. “It’s a long time since someone was something to me.”

“So that’s where it ends.” Peggy looked down the street she’d have to take now. “Now I’ll have to get over it on my own again.”

“Seems so”, Nancy mused. “But just out of curiosity: You don’t happen to have a date with someone on Sunday afternoon, do you?”

Peggy sorted through her memories for a moment before her wits caught up. It was long enough for Nancy to go on: “All I’m saying is that if on Sunday afternoon someone should leave you hanging in that small diner on Barrington Street, someone might be close by and ready to take their place.”

Even though he heart was about to slip back into mourning, Peggy had to grin. “Well then, I guess I have Saturday to find me an unreliable date.”

She looked up at Nancy. She wasn’t sure what Steve would have expected from her, but she was sure he wouldn’t approve of her drowning in sadness. If Nancy was the one to get her out of it, she probably should give it a try.

She snapped back into the present with a start when Nancy gently cupped her left cheek and gave her a peck on the right one. “Natasha”, she whispered, let go and already turned away to walk into the other direction.

“Peggy”, Peggy said, realizing that she hadn’t introduced herself throughout the entire evening. Then she called after the leaving women: “See you on Sunday!”

When opening the door to her dorm, she felt the grief again, but not as soul crushing as before. This time it was eased by a shimmer of hope.


	3. Stuck With You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
> 
> Tony Stark Needs Sleep
> 
> A short reminder, why Tony doesn't even try to sleep when he has work to do. Power napping is for other people. Dozing off when he should either sleep or work simply makes him oblivious to the most basic things. And that can get stressful. Bucky proves to be not much help, when he lets himself get dragged into blind activism. But who could blame him. Tony is good at that. Distracting. And dragging people along.

“Guess it’s time we all get to bed”, Steve called out. The yawning that erupted around him sounded like agreement.

While Bruce and Natasha started to take the snack bowls into the kitchen and Clint snuck out to avoid any kind of cleaning, Tony moaned in agony, that seemed to be equal parts fatigue and disappointment: “You said all the movies! We watched only three, you traitors!”

Steve laughed and was just about to state how obviously Tony had been sleeping throughout the last half hour, but Bucky was faster: “We said all Star Wars movies and we watched all three of them. And no matter what you tell or show me, more than three have never been made.”

“Treason! Lies! Detraction!”, Tony clamoured while pressing his face into Bucky’s chest. “And you are right with them, JARVIS, turning on that blinding light onto my poor eyes!”

Bucky laughed loudly and tucked his arm a bit closer around Tony’s waist. “Apologies, Sir”, JARVIS said. “Since Agent Romanov and Doctor Banner are done with cleaning up, I guess I may turn it down again. Shall I?”

Steve shook his head from where he had hovered in the door frame. Seeing Tony and Bucky get into their tooth rottingly cute love fights still amused him. “Don’t pamper him, J. He should totally just get into his bed”, Steve answered before Tony could get his face out of Bucky’s shirt.

“Fuck you, too, Captain Handsome”, Tony mumbled and simply flopped back into the shirt, thus covering his eyes.

“Good night”, Steve tossed back “and try to find a bed.” He left the room, still chuckling.

It wasn’t long before Bucky took over with the voice of reason. “You should really get into bed, Tony. You haven’t slept properly within the last 32 hours and as much as I like you snuggling up against me like that, it would still be more comfortable in a bed and completely horizontal.”

“Oh, I know some other things you could do horizontal”, Tony muttered and while it sounded like he’d drift back to sleep any second, one could practically hear the suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows in his voice. “And I’m disappointed with your loyalty, J. The light’s still full on. Tune it down and silent corner for you.” The light dimmed.

Bucky sighed. “Yeah, that we can do, too, but maybe we should wait until you can keep your eyes open for more than 10 seconds. Come on, chop-chop, let’s get some sleep and tomorrow I’m open for ‘other horizontal action’, my sleepy little muffintop.”

“Muffintop?!” Tony leaped off of Bucky’s lap. Or more precisely he tried and almost threw them both off of the couch.

“Oh”, Bucky stated. “Well. That’s a first.”

Tony frantically tried to reach on his back but simply lacked the flexibility. “What? What is going on?”, he demanded.

“There may be some of your shirt stuck in my arm”, Bucky said.

“Well, get in unstuck, then”, Tony snarled while still trying to touch the stuck part to estimate the damage.

“I can”, Bucky clenched out between his teeth while fumbling around with the shirt. “… can try to pull here …” He wiggled with the metal arm a bit, “… but this is… damnit, Tony, could you hold still for a second?”

Tony looked back at him over his shoulder. “Can’t you just, you know, move the arm and get it out there?” Of course, incapable of holding still for even one moment, Tony kept tucking and pulling at the shirt.

“Seems like the shirt got stuck in some joints or something. I can’t move single panels at will, but this one I also can’t move by outside force right now”, Bucky explained. He plucked some more at the fabric.

“Careful!”, Tony shouted and Bucky froze.

“Did I hurt you? Is everything ok?”, Bucky asked frantically.

“Don’t pull that hard, this is my favourite shirt”, Tony rambled and glancing at Bucky again he realized that the outcry had probably been a bit over the top. “I mean… sorry? Please don’t rip it apart?” He grinned sheepishly.

Bucky drew in one deep and slightly unnerved breath. “Ok. Let’s stay calm for a moment. Breathe!” They took a deep breath together. “We probably need some kind of tool to pry the panels apart. Preferably something that won’t rip the shirt, right?”

“Yes, right. So off to the workshop?”, Tony asked.

Bucky nodded. “Off to the workshop.”

Bucky’s arm still slung around Tony’s waist, they tried to get into the elevator without putting too much strain on the shirt. In the workshop, Tony started to rummage through various tool boxes, finally settling for a screwdriver that he covered up with some rag, to hopefully prevent it from piercing the shirt. Bucky started fidgeting with it and suddenly breathed in sharply.

“Everything ok?”, Tony asked and subdued the urge to turn around.

“Well, the arm doesn’t have complete neural feedback, but it has some and this feels a bit like pushing a screwdriver under my fingernail, you know.”

“Oh fuck!” Tony turned his head, grabbed Bucky’s metallic hand to keep the arm on the shirt where it was and turned in it so that he could face Bucky. With his other hand he cupped Bucky’s face. “Don’t do that honey!” He drew the other man into a long kiss. “It’s a good shirt, but it’s just a shirt. Don’t hurt yourself over that. And I got another idea.”

He rummaged through the toolbox again and came up with some other weird tools. “Ok, so you know how I prepared your arm, when I had to take it off for check up, right?”

Bucky nodded.

“The first part was turning off nerve tracks. That was the part where you complained about things getting numb and tingly. We’ll do that first.”

“Ok”, Bucky agreed. “But you can’t reach around. How will that work?”

“I can reach around with one hand and you have another free one. We’ll do this. I’ll explain what you have to do.”

~~~~~

Three hours later Tony was right about to give up and simply cut the stuck parts off, thus ruining the shirt. By now he was drenched in sweat and had strained his neck with the uncomfortable twisted position and Bucky didn’t look too happy, either.

“I’m done! I’m out!”, Tony declared. “JARVIS, where’s the next pair of scissors?”

Bucky considered to complain about all the wasted time, but he was ready to do just about anything, if it meant getting into bed and being able to cuddle up for real.

“It’s on the green workbench, Sir. I’ll have DUM-E bring it to you.” The bot whirred to life. “Also, might I suggest something?”, the butler asked.

“Only if it’s a solution that takes less times than cutting up the damn shirt”, Tony snarled.

“It may be helpful to take the shirt off.”

Tony couldn’t get rid of the feeling of being in a particularly bad slapstick movie when he and Bucky stared at each other in complete disbelief while DUM-E rolled up next to him, holding out a pair of scissors. For once, without dropping them.

“JARVIS, are you kidding me?”, Tony asked, still staring at Bucky.

“No, but if you think it wouldn’t help, you are always free to ignore my suggestions.”

“Couldn’t you have said this, like, three hours ago?” Anger, despair and definitely a good amount of consternation were battling on Tony’s face.

“Silent Corner, if I may remind you, Sir”, JARVIS deadpanned.

It took another two seconds of complete silence for Bucky to burst into laughter.

“I swear to all the gods that are listening”, Tony murmured, “If you were my child, J, this would be the moment I’d disown you!”

Grumbling curses and ideas what boring sorting tasks he could bother JARVIS with, Tony started to wiggle out of his shirt.

“Your son definitely got your sass, sweety”, Bucky wrung out between giggles.

With a few quick movements, Tony had the arm’s nerves deactivated, pried out the shirt and reactivated everything. Then he swatted Bucky over the head the freshly freed shirt. “That’s for conspiring with my bratty AI son”, he moped.

Bucky was still grinning like a mad man when he stood up, gently took the shirt out of Tony’s hand, put it on the workbench and swooped Tony up into his arms. “And now comes what you get for 'conspiring’ with me, solnyshko moyo. Have I ever mentioned that you are incredibly cute when you are sulking?”

“I’m not sulking, I’m not cute and I’m certainly no solnywhatnot mojo!”, Tony grumbled.

“Sunshine”, Bucky said while carrying Tony into the elevator.

“What?”

“Solnyshko moyo. It means my sunshine.” He pressed a kiss to the forehead of a still scowling Tony.

“Well that’s…” Tony grasped for words and eventually settled for pouting. “That’s just to cute to be upset about. I love you, you jerk!”, he muttered.

“Love you, too, pighead.”

When Bucky reached the bedroom door, Tony had already fallen asleep in his arms. Hopefully without getting any hair stuck in a certain arm.


	4. All That Argues Is Not Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
> 
> Polyamory, Misunderstandings, Tony does what he wants, Everyone's doing what they want but this is a shitty tag so I only put it here, Love Triangle, Actual Love Triangle which is not a Jealousy Triangle ;)
> 
> Written for the word prompt "Do you ever think we should just stop this?", sent to me by strangestructures.
> 
> Because these three totally are childish little brats like that sometimes and love fucking with each other. Probably in both ways, but this is about the family friendly meaning of the phrase. Also, trolling the media is fun.

They certainly didn’t put too much emphasis on it, but then again, there was no need to emphasize when Tony Stark and Steve Rogers strolled down the street, casually holding hands. If anyone had asked, Steve might have gone into a lecture on how nobody would even consider suspecting anything if it where two women holding hands and how incredibly sexist that was and anyway, yes they were together, is there a problem, but nobody asked. One might even have thought that nobody looked, but the blogposts, tweets and the two secretly taken cellphone-quality pictures in the tabloids only hours later told another story.

Tony almost snorted coffee over his tablet when he saw it the next morning. Drawn to him by the noise, Steve walked up to him, put his chin on the smaller man’s shoulder and made a vague noise of amusement. “Playing the media will never cease to entertain you, will it?”, he asked.

Tony turned to him and put a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth. “No, not in the near future, I guess”, the engineer answered. “But it’s not even really playing, is it? I mean, I didn’t lie to them or anything. One might argue, I didn’t tell them the whole truth, but I am not responsible for their assumptions.”

That wasn’t even worthy of an answer in Steve’s eyes, so he simply poked Tony slightly into the side. “Whatever you say”, he said and went for the door. “You’re the genius, so who am I to argue.”

~~~~~

After dinner Steve decided to call it a day. Originally he had planned on answering some fanmail, partly for PR-reasons, partly because he liked being in touch with the people who looked up to him. Then he had seen the count on his folder of unread mails - which for some unfathomable reason had gone through the roof since yesterday - and opted for watching a movie instead. He had done his very best to catch up, but he had effectively missed more than 20 years of pop culture that everyone expected him to know, so he went through Tony’s rec-list and compared it to replays of “classics” throughout the closer theatres.

“JARVIS, is Bucky in the tower?”, he asked. By now he refrained from looking at the ceiling when talking to the AI. He scrolled through the movie description of the most promising match instead. It looked a bit weird, but everyone seemed to love that Tarantino-guy so it probably was worth a look.

“He is, Commander Rogers. Would you like me to establish a connection or deliver a message?”, JARVIS asked, probably already anticipating Steve’s plans.

“Yes, a message please. Tell him: Mission Grandpa Goes To Hollywood, instance 63, briefing in 10.”

“Certainly”, JARVIS answered and Steve still couldn’t put a finger on how it worked, but the synthesized voice sounded slightly amused.

10 minutes later he met Bucky at the main entrance. “You’re getting lazy, Captain”, he snarled. “Briefing announcements should come with a place.”

“Well, since I could safely assume that by now you know the drill, I minimized the amount of exchanged information”, Steve told him. “All in the name of security, Buck. Shall we?”, he asked and already headed for the street.

Roughly three hours later they looked at the rolling credits, partly because they were both used to watching the credits, partly because Bucky had somewhere along the movie shifted in his seat so that now he was leaning on Steve’s shoulder and Steve had slung an arm around him and had started to twirl strands of his hair and occasionally scrape gently over his scalp. In short: There was absolutely no reason for Bucky to want to leave.

“Guess we’ll have to get up soon”, Steve mumbled.

“But whyyyyy”, Bucky whined.

“Maybe we should leave before the lights go up. Always makes it so uncomfortable”, Steve contemplated.

Bucky turned his head up to look at him. The shit eating grin on his face made Steve gulp. “Ah, that’s what it’s all about”, Bucky whispered.

“No, Buck”, Steve warned. “Don’t do it.” He wasn’t even sure if he meant it himself and apparently the lack of conviction came through in his voice. In any way, it did nothing to stop Bucky from jumping out of his seat.

“So, this is, what it’s about”, he repeated, this time loud and clear. The grin had left his face entirely. “With Stark it’s ok, but with me, you’ll keep it all covered. Should I go back home and hide there? Wait for you to consider coming to me? Well, maybe I’ll do just that! Or maybe I’m done with this entire bullshit!”

He stormed out of the theatre and for a moment Steve simply sat there and gaped at him. Then he dropped his head and started massaging his forehead. “I’m surrounded by seven year olds”, he mumbled. It took him about ten seconds and confused murmuring from the few, remaining guests in the hall to start snorting with laughter. “Oh Bucky, that’s a game two can play.” With a mischievous smile he picked up his jacket as well as the one Bucky had thrown at his feet to enhance his little performance and headed for the door.

~~~~~

“Have you seen Steve since debrief?”, Tony asked as he entered the common room.

Bucky shook his head. “Nope. Wanted to talk to him myself. He was kind of distant after the mission. Think anything happened to him?”

Tony went silent for a moment. “Honestly, no”, he concluded. “I mean, stopping these wannabe terrorists was hardly worth mentioning. Our average drill is harder, but yeah. Distant says it pretty well. Maybe it was because of the hostages? I mean, we got them out pretty quickly, but that may get to him, though.”

“Oh, wait. Got mail from him”, Bucky announced. He tapped away at the pad on his lap. It took about 4 seconds until Bucky let his head fall back onto the backrest and groaned: “Steeeeeeeeeeve!”

At Tony’s questioning look, he held out the tablet and sighed. “Guess I asked for that one.”

Tony accepted the device and saw a mail, titled “Love you ;)”, sent by Steve. It linked to a blogpost which mainly consisted of a picture of Bucky and Tony standing in the rubble of the building they had had to… open thoroughly to get the terrorists. They were leaning against each other, Tony’s nose buried in the mess of Bucky’s hair.

Pretty blurred by the shallow depth of field of the picture you could make out Steve in the background, glaring daggers at Bucky. Tony took a moment and tried to make any sense of that. Steve had indeed been distant the whole time and Tony distinctly remembered that moment. He had looked over at him only seconds before that and Steve had simply shook his head slightly and looked away.

“Payback”, Bucky said as if that would explain anything. Then he took the tablet back, opened twitter and searched through some tags. Tony only had to throw a glance at them to know what was going on. And he knew pretty exactly, because the chances of Bucky really blowing a fuse at Steve for infidelity in a theatre were only 0 because they couldn’t get negative.

Tony presented a satisfied grin that would make a cat in cream look miserable. “I’d say do whatever you two want”, he said, “but actually: Keep doing exactly this. And send me that picture from today. I need counter material in case our dear Captain should ever call me childish again.”

~~~~~

“I know that the seriousness of the situation is probably completely lost on you, but you’re not stupid, Tony”, Pepper scolded. “You know how PR works and you know how important it is for a company as SI, not to mention the Avengers.”

“Aww come on, it’s just rumours”, he retorted.

She cut him off with a sharp look. “Rumours with photos to back them up. I consider this discussion closed, because you’ll do what you want anyway.” She turned to Steve. “And I am really disappointed that you let yourself get dragged into this as well.”

Steve looked a bit like a kicked puppy, but Pepper was having none of that. After four seconds of her laser like stare, he gave in. “Sorry. It won’t happen again. Promise.”

She seemed to be appeased by that and left, the sharp clicking of her heals echoing through the silence. They were still both clinging to their thoughts, when Bucky stamped into the room, flopped onto the couch next to Steve, swayed his feet over the armrest and put his head into Steve’s lap. When Steve punctuated his intense glare with a low rumble, Bucky’s eyes got round. “Stevie? What is it?”

“I just got dragged over the coals by Pepper because you started that stupid little game”, Steve said and the right corner of his mouth raised every so slightly.

“Sorry?”, Bucky asked sheepishly.

“You better be”, Steve said and his grin was the only warning Bucky got before Steve proved that he still knew where Bucky’s ticklish spots were.

Roughly twenty tickling, bickering and pillow throwing minutes later all three of them sat on the floor, leaned against the couch, tangled into each other and panting. The throw pillows were strewn across the entire room and Tony had given up to stuff his button down back into his pants. They also looked incredibly happy.

“If I’m a seven year old, we all are”, Tony announced.

Steve snarled. “Let’s say twelve. If you’re seven, I’m twelve.”

Bucky looked up at him and snorted. “Let me remind you, that I remember twelve year old Steve ‘I’m a walking twig and I will bite through your neck, fight me’ Rogers. 'Mature’ or 'responsible’ are not words I’d use in one sentence with that little punk.”

A few minutes later, Steve rested against the couch while the other two men were both partially draped over his lap, kissing lazily.

“Do you ever think we should just stop this?”, he asked eventually.

Hesitant to separate their lips, Tony and Bucky took a moment before answering almost simultaneously:

“Being childish?”, asked Tony.

“Fucking with the media?”, Bucky guessed.

Steve frowned. “Both good questions, but I was thinking about the media-thing.”

“Yeah, I actually sometimes think we should”, Tony said. “I think about all the negative effects Pepper lists and about what it means to my company.”

By now Bucky was staring incredulously at him. “Eventually I think that it’s probably really time to stop this”, he proceeded, “and then I think: But where would be the fun in that?”

“Which also answers the question about being childish”, Steve concluded and pressed his two favourite snickering dorks into another kiss.


	5. In Plain Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
> 
> Social Media, Youtube, giggles. No idea, what else to tag this.
> 
> In which Tony simply doesn't expect Steve to get things and Steve is incredibly amused by how blind Tony can be when he doesn't expect anything that could be seen.

Save. 

There it was. A simple button. He had pressed it several times before, but now it seemed incredibly hard to bring his finger down onto the screen. It was stupid, really. He could as well just ask JARVIS to upload it. Tony sighed. One other video, what difference could it make? He scrolled back to the preview and tapped the play button.

"Hi everyone! I'm Tony Stark, billionaire owner and chief engineer of SI, but why am I telling you this? You know me. Found my youtube channel, probably clicked through several of my fan pages and I guess some of you even have... well, let's not go too deep into what you may or may not have found out about me on the internet."

That wasn't too pretentious, right? He saw himself smiling back at him, nonchalantly. Almost the same way he always did for the cameras. Helped him to relax for the main part of the video. The main part. He watched his face on screen drop the faked media smile and change into a genuine one, tinted with a hint of something else. Doubt. Vulnerability, maybe.

"Anyway", his voice chimed, sounding weird from the speakers. "As I said, you know that. Now let's get to something you probably don't know. I, Tony Stark, as I pointed out already", he watched himself clutching his hands and rubbing them nervously, "am bisexual." There was an approximately everlasting pause in which he saw himself turn away from the camera and stare into the off, frowning contemplatively. Then he turned back. "There. I said it. To all of you, because that's how it is. I felt ashamed of this for far too long, but there is nothing to be ashamed of. Some of you may feel tempted to make a joke about me now, regarding my sometimes very active sex life, and yes, I'm also sex positive. Sex is a great thing, as long as everyone is having fun and feeling good about it. But the important part here is: I'm bisexual. I feel drawn to men and women and probably some people who are neither or both. I don't fall in love that often, but that also is - for me - not limited to people of one specific gender. And that is what I wanted to tell you. Thanks for listening."

That was it. He had never told anyone. But there was this strange feeling of distance about things he shared on his vlog. Of course, it was an illusion and he was fully aware of that. Nothing on the internet was anonymous or distant, least of all things that landed on the youtube channel of a celebrity, but it still felt more ok than just walking out and telling his team. Maybe he would just do that tomorrow, anyway. Maybe he wouldn't. He'd try, that had to count.

Save.

You're video has been uploaded!

 

Two months later.

Seeing Steve happy was probably one of the best things that came from their dates. With visiting Disneyland, it was a close call, but Steve's broad grin and happy laughter still topped that. Not to mention the dopey looks he shot Tony basically every other moment. And Tony had to grin right back, probably just as love struck.

Even now, sitting at home, eating mushroom omelette and looking out at the Manhatten skyline, Tony felt a bit like a love drunk teenager. "Gosh, I still don't know how I deserved someone like you", he mused.

"Well, that's a mystery to me, too", Steve joked. "But maybe your genius is part of it. Or your tousled hair. Or that completely subtle hint about you being bisexual and the doey eyes you made at me the day after."

Tony frowned. "Day after?"

"Yeah, maybe two days after. You know what I mean."

"Actually", Tony said, drawing the last syllable long and tapping at his chin, "I don't. What hint? Day after what?"

"The video?"

The crease on Tony's forehead deepened and he stared through Steve for a moment. Then his entire face lit up. "Oh, you mean the..."

"Yes?", Steve probed.

"My, you're talking about my, wait. Why did you see that? And when? We're talking about my youtube thing, are we?"

"At least I am, yes", Steve confirmed, nodding and looking like he was expecting Tony to be up to something.

Tony gave an incredible impression of a fish out of water. "But, I mean, how did you... how did you find that?"

Steve gave him the most bewildered and irritated glare. "What do you mean, how did I _find_ it? I don't remember having to look for it. You know, with it being plastered all over the internet.The thing went practically viral within half an hour of upload. Your channel pretty much exploded."

"Yeah, I know", Tony gave, still gesticulating widely. "But, you know, I thought..."

"You thought grandpa Steve doesn't know how to internet", Steve deadpanned, crossing his arms in front of his chest and leaning back in his chair. "Interesting. Interesting indeed."

Steve's face screamed 'So that's what you think about me' and Tony saw very little ground to defend himself. He stammered a few words but in the end was absolved from his awkwardness when Steve burst out into bellowing laughter. Well, it didn't actually make anything less awkward, but Steve was distracted. After a solid half minute, the laughter ebbed off.

"Jesus, Tony, you're looking like a drowned poodle", Steve giggled.

"Guess I do. I honestly never thought anyone had seen that. Anyone here, I mean. You know?" Tony nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "Nobody ever mentioned it."

Steve looked at him with round eyes.

"What?", Tony asked and was promptly shut down by Steve who now fell literally off his chair from laughing.

Tony got up, threw his hands into the air and paced around the kitchen. "I'm trying to have a serious conversation here and this is what I get?", he asked, more towards the ceiling than towards Steve, who was busy doubling over and holding his belly anyway. "Oh come on, now you're overdrawing it, don't you think? Is it really that ridiculous?", Tony asked, looking sternly at the heaving pile of Steve on the floor. He also tapped his foot on the floor and crossed his arms. Amusement was twinkling in his eyes, because that always happened when Steve laughed, but he was also genuinely confused as to what was going on.

Again, it took some time, but Steve came back down. Wiping a tear from his right eye, he got back up with significant support from the kitchen table. He looked at Tony, still huffing. "You really don't have any clue", he stated, grinning. It wasn't a question.

"No, I really don't", Tony confirmed, dropping his stern act and actually smiling. "Tell me, love of my life, what amuses you so?"

Steve stepped over to him, wrapped him up in a hug and kissed his forehead. "You know, I'm aware that you probably have tons of followers with any variation of the name 'Captain America' or my birthname." He grinned at Tony. "But there is only one OneTrueCapsicle following you and certainly only one of your followers regularly posts reaction videos to what you upload with me in them."

Tony blinked a few times frantically. "What?", he finally brought out.

"The one for that specific video we we're talking about was actually kind of lame, because I missed most of it. I think I gaped at the screen for a few seconds, then I mumbled something that may have not passed the youtube restrictions for profanities if I hadn't censored it and then I ran off to make preparations. And may have forgotten to turn off the camera."

"Preparations?", Tony asked. "Was that the day you came into my workshop, all dressed up and honest to god asked me out with a bouquet of flowers in your hand?"

Steve smiled. "Just the one."

Tony jabbed him in the shoulder. "Sap", he snarled.

"As if that would bother you", Steve mumbled, caught the hand that had just hit him and planted a kiss in its palm. "And sappy or not: Best decision of my life so far."


	6. To Teach An Angel How To Fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
> 
> I don't even know what to make of this. My hand slipped and nervous fluff happened. It's... weird. But cute I think. And I have no idea where it came from.

The woman behind the counter did Steve the favour of refraining from asking any small talk questions, but he still felt anything but comfortable in his place.

"There are groups of mixed age", she elaborated, "but they are still on average very young, and groups only for adults. I guess we both agree that it would be suitable for you to go to an adults only group, Mr Rogers?", she asked matter of factly.

Steve needed a moment to parse what she meant and then nodded vigorously. "Yes, of course. I mean young, um... yes. Absolutely. There is no male group, is there?"

The lady gave him that warm smile again that had at least some calming effect on him. She had used it generously since he had turned up here and he was incredibly grateful for it. It still seemed far too hot in here. "No, there isn't. Requests in that department are a bit scarce. So, the course will start next week, three sessions and I'll see you on Wednesday at 7pm?"

"Yes, thank you Mrs Perkins. See you then", he said with relieve flooding through him. At least this he was done with.

 

Wednesday next week came a lot faster than he had wished for. He turned up 15 minutes early in case he couldn't find the room or anything else went wrong, but in the end he simply stood in front of the door and considered knocking versus waiting. The lights in the hall were dimmed and he could see a flat beam seeping through the crack underneath the door. Mrs Perkins was most likely already there, too, but maybe she wanted to prepare the room without disturbance. He waited, nervously shuffling around.

About five minutes later a young, dark haired woman walked down the hall, right into his direction. She fixated him with her look while grabbing the door handle. When she had pushed the door open slightly she raised an eyebrow and asked: "Are you waiting for someone?"

"Um", he stammered, "No, I'm actually, uh, I'm here for the course."

Here eyebrow went up a bit higher but now there was also a hint of suspicion on her face. "The course on female hygiene?"

"Yes, just the one", he confirmed and pushed back the awkwardness as far as possible. It wasn't a crime to visit this course as a man and he wouldn't feel like it was. "I'm Steve", he said and extended a hand.

Somehow that seemed to have been the wrong thing to say. The woman huffed and stepped into the seminar room, ignoring his greeting. He waited a second and then went in, too.

He nodded towards Mrs Perkins who beamed at him, nodded back and then proceeded to unpack stacks of paper and plastic models and started attaching a laptop to a beamer and setting up the screen. He chose a seat in the back of the room. The one other attendee already made him feel weirder than he had expected and after all, he didn't want to freak anyone out. He was suddenly painfully aware that in a room that would probably be full of women, he'd have to do his best not to dominate the whole scene. He slumped his shoulders and sunk into his seat.

Soon the room was indeed filled with women of all shapes and colors and all of them either looked at him like he was a creep or did their best to ignore him. Maybe visiting a course had not been the best idea. Maybe internet research would have done the trick, too. He had never been aware of how easily and unintendedly a man could seem like a threat in a group of women. He considered to ditch the next two sessions, but this one he'd sit through.

At 7pm sharp his problems were at least partially resolved because everyone turned their attention at Mrs Perkins who introduced herself briefly and then dug straight into the informational part during which she practically constantly paced up and down the front row when she wasn't stuck with a presentation or this huge, slightly disturbing plastic model of a vagina.

She had announced that all of the information would later be handed out on paper, too, but Steve knew that he learned best by writing so he took notes anyway. Also it helped to ignore the occasional dubious looks he got from other attendees.

And it even made him forget for the majority of time that there was a woman standing in front of him, talking about vaginas and labia and a lot of other things, most of which he had never heard about until today, and all of them where directly connected to something that he had learned not to talk about throughout his entire childhood. And later... well, there never really had been an occasion or reason to talk about it much.

Mrs Perkins had a refreshingly scientific and factual tone which made him feel a little less uncomfortable about it. Apparently these were things you could talk about nowadays. Or at least here. And he should better learn to talk about them. He looked through his notes and looked up at the list that was projected at the wall. He really didn't know a lot about menstrual cycles but there were things even he had heard about and this didn't seem to fit. Mrs Perkins happily went on and the other participants... well, these women presumably all already had their periods, so they probably knew anyway. But he didn't and he was here to learn.

He considered for a moment to simply wait for the end of course and ask Mrs Perkins privately. But then again, if you couldn't ask questions about periods in this class then you never could. He raised his hand. And got another wave of glares for that.

"Mr Rogers, you have a question?", Mrs Perkins asked completely unperturbed.

"Yes", he croaked and had never wished to melt into the floor so much. It was a medical and scientific topic. Granted, it was mainly about body parts he didn't feel comfortable talking about and round about twenty people were staring at him as if they only waited for him to say something offending, but he could do this. He cleared his throat and proceeded: "You wrote down period cramps as a sign of medically concerning conditions but I always heard that cramps were a normal, I'm not sure what to call it... a normal occurrence during periods?"

He heard a woman in the row in front of him groan lowly and whisper: "Why is he even here?"

Before he could crumble into an embarrassed heap in his chair, one of her neighbours hissed: "Oh shut up Sally. That's actually a good question."

Mrs Perkins spoke down the remaining whispers in the room: "Ah yes, the old period cramp myth. You don't have to look so embarrassed, Mr Rogers, it's a rather wide spread misconception." She turned away from him and fell back into her pacing before elaborating: "Period cramps are a very common thing during the first periods, early after puberty. After a few years the cramps should go back. Of course, there are cases where cramps and back pain occur as a normal epiphenomenon, but in the vast majority it is a sign of some kind of infection, illness or malnourishment. Dehydration is one of the most common reasons for period cramps, but if they occur regularly, a doctor's appointment would be advisable. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, thank you", he said. When he looked up from his notes he was surprised to see the first curious and non suspicious looks his way.

The course seemed to become less and less uncomfortable. He even asked another question and Mrs Perkins seemed to be more than pleased by inquiries, so he made a mental note not to hold back next week. When Mrs Perkins ended her lecture, Steve packed up and was about to head for the door when the woman who had arrived earliest to the class suddenly stood in front of him and extended her hand. "Hi! I'm Amalia."

Steve shook her hand and said: "Hi, I'm Steve" before thinking about it and bit his tongue. "Wait, we already settled that."

She smiled nervously, retreated her hand and rubbed her fingers. "Yes, about that. Sorry if I was a bit rude before class. It's just, well, a man in this course..."

Steve waved it off. "Oh, no worries. I see the problem. I needed about ten seconds to start questioning whether coming here was a good idea. I mean, you probably come here and expect a safe space to talk amongst other people who are, well, affected by this. And with men always being a focus of attention... I never intended to disturb this for any of you."

When he spoke about focus of attention he became aware of the little flock of women around him. It was far from the entire course, but five other women were lingering in close proximity of his desk.

"So", one of them interrupted the upcoming silence, "I have to say I was suspicious, too, but you seem interested. Like, not mock interested or creepy interested, but seriously. How come?", she asked curiously.

Steve rubbed the back of his neck and couldn't keep a dopey smile from his face. "Cecilia. That's my little daughter. Two years old." A hushed "Aww", erupted around him. "I figured that one day she'd have to learn about all this and schools are not exactly famous for covering it well, so I decided it would be best to learn it myself."

Amalia raised a questioning eyebrow. "Not to be nosey, but wouldn't it have been easier for her mother to cover this? I mean, it's always great if men learn about these things, but she should know or learn it anyway, don't you think?"

"There is no mom", he said casually. When Amalia's expression turned into a worried frown he raised his hands in a placating gesture and explained: "Oh no, I'm not, I mean there is my husband, who doesn't exactly know more about the issue than I do. And we didn't really want to push this over to one of our female friends. I mean, if they happen to be around when questions come up, that's great, but we shouldn't depend on it."

Another woman of the group chimed in: "I have to admit, I was always worried about that girl without a mother thing, but you sound like you're doing it right." She looked out of the window and longingly said: "I wish my mother had known all the things we are learning here. And talked about it. Would have made my first periods a hell of a lot less frightening and I wouldn't have to learn in in my late twenties at an evening class." She gave him a bright smile. "You sound like a great dad."

"Thanks", he stammered over the affirmative muttering that came up. "I do what I can."

 

 

When he came home, Tony was sitting on the couch, playing airplane with a giggling Cecilia. As soon as he stepped through the door, she exclaimed "Teeeve" and made grabby hands towards him from her elevated point on Tony's hands.

"I read several medical papers on menstrual cycles and vaginal hygiene, everything about it on webmd, nine collections of hygiene tips and a few blogpost while you were away", Tony rambled and got up to walk over to Steve. Earlier that week had elaborated several times as to why looking things up on the internet would be so much easier and most likely more accurate - if you checked the sources - than visiting some course. "And then I taught our little angel how to say your name." With this he handed Steve the little bundle and Cecilia promptly started gnawing on his jacket. She loved denim. Especially the taste of it as it seemed. "And how was your evening?", Tony asked before gave Steve a kiss on the cheek.

"Great", Steve answered. "I got a lot of useful informations and I learned to talk about it. And maybe I learned a bit more about how hard it is to be a woman in our society." He shifted Cecilia into the crook of his elbow and tickled her belly. "That's good, right little angel? Maybe with that we can make it a bit easier for you later."

Tony pressed himself against Steve's shoulder, slung an arm around his waist and looked down at their giggling daughter. "I'll be damned if we don't try."


End file.
